1HERSA1 F023
SPECIAL REPORT
UTES, VANS & 4WDS
A two-stroke of genius
With a tiny engine, minimal space and a top speed of 60km/h, Australia's rarest utility is set to star at the Deniliquin muster, writes Clive Hopkins.
Small world . . .
Don Lock with
his Zeta
Lightburn.
Photo: Bethanie
Sessions
Home-grown V8s usually hog
the limelight at the famous
Deniliquin Ute Muster but
this year, a tiny two-stroke
workhorse with a fibreglass
body is set to be the star of the
show. The Lightburn Zeta utility is
guaranteed to stand out from the
estimated 7000 to 8000 utes making
the trip to country NSW on the
weekend of September 30.
With only eight ever made, and
just three believed to still exist, the
Zeta is Australia's -- and perhaps the
world's -- rarest utility.
Don Lock, a retired musician
from Kyabram, Victoria, bought the
Zeta in 1992.
''It was built in 1964 in South
Australia by the Lightburn
Company, which was better known
for making fibreglass washing
machines,'' he says.
Having cracked the washing-
machine market, company owner
Harold Lightburn decided the car
market couldn't be much harder.
Lightburn Zetas were made as
sedans, station wagons and a cute
sports model that looks like it
stepped out of a Jetsons cartoon.
But it's the ute version that remains
the real rarity.
''I spoke with the foreman who
worked at the factory at the time
and he confirmed that only eight of
them were ever made,'' Lock says.
The engine on the Zeta is a
Villiers two-stroke twin-cylinder
324cc; basically, a motorcycle
engine. Many components,
including the fibreglass body, were
manufactured locally and built by
hand, meaning no two were ever
quite the same.
Lock recalls seeing Zetas in what
might be charitably described as
their ''heyday'' on the streets of
Melbourne in the 1960s. ''They
were always very unusual colours,
like pale green or powder blue,'' he
says. ''Washing-machine colours, I
suppose.'' He then saw the first Zeta
that he came to own while reading
Unique Cars magazine.
''I saw the picture but it wasn't as
I remembered them,'' he says. ''I
phoned the owner, who was a
farmer in Leongatha, Victoria, who
insisted, 'It's got Zeta written all
over it!' -- which it had. I think I was
probably the only one who phoned
about it. I offered him $1500,
including for spare parts, and he
seemed happy. He even delivered it
to me.''
Lock worked on the vehicle to
retun it to a roadworthy condition
and solved a smoky-exhaust
problem by reducing the oil/petrol
ratio to one in 100.
Melbourne in the 1990s was
perhaps not the best place to drive
a slow car. ''It would do
60 kilometres per hour on the flat,''
he says, ''and 75 down a hill. It was
never an everyday car, just a fun
thing to do.''
Having bought his first Zeta ute
-- a Series II, as it turned out -- Lock
went looking for a Series I and it's
that one that's going up to
Deniliquin. Over the years, Lock has
also owned two of the sedans.
Apart from its distinctive looks,
the most striking feature of the Zeta
is its four reverse gears. Being a
two-stroke, the entire engine can be
run backwards, using the same four
forward gears.
''On the key start, you turn the
key clockwise to go forward and
anticlockwise to go backwards,''
Lock says. ''To reverse the
direction, you need to turn the
engine off, wait for a complete
stop, then start again. The engine
timing in reverse is a little out but it
does work.''
Another oddity is that the fuel
gauge is a piece of transparent hose
with a direct connection to the
tank, which, as Lock puts it, ''is fine
when you're stationary but more
difficult when you're going along''.
Apart from owning a vehicle that
looks so different from the norm,
what else appeals about the Zeta?
For Don Lock, it all boils down to
one word -- humour. ''If I go down
the street, I start turning heads long
before I get there because of the
noise,'' he says. ''Once they see
what's coming, there's usually a
smile and a wave.''